It's Ugly... But It's Working!!!

[Sprockett]

After lots of tinkering and fretting about adding a sump and then having it flood my hardwood floors I finally got it together and started leak testing this morning, learned a ton in the process and may still make more additions to this one before I hook it into the nano. Here are some pics with explanations:



This is where the water from the main tank is coming in, the water is pushed into an ante chamber and directed towards the protien skimmer, I sealed off the drop so I could add a media filter to that area.



One thing that really scared me about a sump was flooding because the wier stopped working. This is my solution, the final chamber has a divider that limits the amount of water that can be pumped into the main tank should the weir fail. here I'm using a rio 1100 to get the water back into the tank. Since I'm running a nano I really restricted the volume in case of a failure, I'd rather loose a $70 pump than repair a whole wood floor (I have spares anyway)....



This is the top of my Lee's Skimmer, it just fits in the tank which is nice because I can keep evaporation down to a minimum...



This is the top of the tank, you can see the baffles and the bubble trap, we added some dye to the water to make it clearer, also on top I added a valve to the overflow so I could restrict any gurgling and then to the return I added a second valve so I could restrict the flow if needed.



This is the little 10 gallon we used for the test run, my nano is 12 so I knew that if I could avoid disaster with this one the nano would be just fine.

Here is how the water flow is setup:



The idea was to have the water flow into the sections I wanted..

So far so good, I still have a couple of questions about the setup...

1. On the wier (it's a CPR CS50 that does 300gph) they suggest using an Aqua Lifter for the siphon on the overflow, but the last thing I want is another piece of equipment hanging off the back so I was thinking of plugging it into my AquaClear 30...

2. How do I measure GPH with this setup?? We tried some dye in water and it took about 3 minutes for it to fully cycle the whole system and back into the main display tank.

3. For my lighting should it be opposite the main tanks schedule, I read that somewhere and am curious why you would do that?

4. Should I be using black tubing as opposed to the clear stuff I'm running now? (it was easier because I already had a bunch of it).

All that's left to do is add a heater and let it run for a day or two, I originally had a rio 800 in there and it was struggling and making noise so I dropped in the 1100 and it's super super quiet and the water flow is much much better...

Cheers

[drparker]

Looking good!

If the Aqua clear suck the bubbles out your golden.

The main page of Reef Central has a head lose calculator on it that can tell you your current flow. It's in the menu on left towards lower half of page.

Yes lighting should be opposite cycles. When things aren't't photosynthesizing there's a drop in pH. (I think it's a drop if I remember right might be a rise.) As long as it's not in direct sunlight the tubing shouldn't matter.

One other note, it's recommended not to seal the unit with a glass lid. Yes with an open top you'll get more evaporation but you'll also get a much better gas exchange. I had a cryo problem until I switched from glass to egg crate.


Fuge looks great!

Drew

[Travis L. Stevens]

That's what I'm talkin' about, Sprockett! Who cares if it's ugly. If it works is what is important. Check out my overflow before I drilled my tank.

This is how it works


This is it in action

[BenH98]

I have been thinking about building my own sump and seeing yours gives me inspiration... a few questions though - how big is your sump? and what's with the ante chamber? I've never seen nor heard of that before... how does it work? Last question - what material did you use to make your baffles & different sections of the sump? Thanks! P.s. - it's looking good!

[Sprockett]

Ben...

Great questions....

Let's see...

1. For the tank I just bought a cheapie 20 gal glass tank at the local petsmart (it's the only thing I'll buy from them). Paid $30 I think...

2. The ante chamber (not even sure if that's the right word), is a baffle I placed in the return area, what it does is allow the water to flow around (the bubble trap actually spills into it) but if the overflow clogs or stops it keeps about half the return areas water in the return area so it does not overflow my main tank. I can post more pictures of it if needed and show it in operation...

3. For the baffles I used standard 1/8" acrylic from the local plastics store, cut it on my table saw and routed it on my router station, I made sure it had a snug fit in the tank (make sure you relieve the corners for the tank silicone) and then just used standard aquarium grade silicone to glue them in. Where needed I used acrylic glue to mate those surfaces.

I'm not as good with it as Melev but it got the job done!! I could have used 1/4" acrylic but since it was going in the tank and the volumes are not high the 1/8" stuff worked fine. However in the future I'll use 1/4".

Cheers

[BenH98]

I'm still sort of confused... it seems like it's almost another bubble trap type of thing, yet it's not. Maybe more pictures would help me